Fire!

This is the multi-day story of how we reacted to the recent wildfire disasters in the North Bay. Let's start with Thursday, 12 October 2017:

Live Fire Web App (pjdohertygis), Sonoma and Napa County fires, 12 October 2017

As this map shows, large areas near our home (which is just south of the bottom of the map) are on fire. These fires, which started last Sunday during a windstorm, are by no means under control, nor are they the only fires in the region. The winds have recently picked up again, and with fire fighting personnel already stretched to their limits we are taking the current "red flag warning" very seriously. Should fires start in Marin itself, we were prepared to decamp for Oakland where a large, empty house always awaits us. We are in that regard and many others much luckier than most of our neighbors to the north.

What we all share, however, is the air. Fires of this size spread a haze of particulate pollution across a wide area (here's one animation of that) and according to my BreezoMeter app the air where I live has been not recommended for breathing for days now. Moving to Oakland will not solve that problem, so for the weekend we're going further afield, to the aptly named "Fire Escape Cabin" near Yosemite.

And what if the fires do come? As I said, we would leave and have our bug-out bags packed accordingly. The packing of those bags, that is to say the selection of the few items you'd really want to take with you, is an interesting exercise. There's hardly a thing here we would be unable to replace or, if irreplaceable, we would actually miss. A few pieces of art (we won't transport those, they're as likely to be damaged in the rush as they are to be burnt if it comes to that), my digital data (which is backed up remotely and locally in a variety of ways), my not-yet-digitized data (the total destruction of which would be a relief to me as, I suspect, to most of us). Lubbuh is in the bag and our passports and permanent records live in a little metal box, ready to travel. Basic emergency supplies are stored in the car on a full-time basis. Let's hope it never comes to that, but if it ever does, I think we're ready.

Friday, 13 October:

Yosemite is amazing, a great inspiration, but, as the photo shows, even here the air ain't great. This is not due to the fires we've fled but rather to issues that Yosemite routinely faces (Central Valley agricultural pollution, smog from cities to the West).

Saturday, 14 October:

Whatever the air, evidence of fire on the ground is everywhere. Yosemite, as much as any part of California, has suffered from drought and drought's BFF, wildfire.

Sunday 15 October:

The smoke from the North Bay has now caught up to us, and air quality where we are (in the mountains at the top of the poisonous peach area, below) is by some measurements--wood smoke--as bad as where we were. There's no way to know, but I'm hoping that at least in other respects--burning insulation, say--it's not quite as bad.

And soon it will be much worse:  Monday night the wind is predicted to move the smoke away from Marin and to the west, so it's time to get back to the ocean side of those fires.

Monday, 16 October:

Back in the Bay Area. The fires are largely contained, some of the evacuation orders have been lifted, but the air is still bad and, for those returning to the burned zones, the ground is worse. Santa Rosa has reportedly lost 5% of its housing stock, and this in an already overheated, so to speak, market. I don't think this disaster is of unprecedented magnitude, but it's definitely up there.

Still, we have escaped unscathed and, though the fire season is not yet over nor these fires yet out, it's time for us to go back to worrying about our other great enemy, flood. More about that another time, and in the meanwhile, some pictures from Yosemite.